Wright , Beverly
Beverly Wright
Dr. Beverly Wright is an environmental justice scholar and advocate, author, and civic leader. She is the founder and Executive Director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (DSCEJ), the first-ever environmental justice center in the United States.
Bullard, R. D., & Wright, B. (2012). The wrong complexion for protection: How the government response to disaster endangers African American communities. NYU Press.
Bullard, R. D., & Wright, B. (Eds.). (2009). Race, place, and environmental justice after Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to reclaim, rebuild, and revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Westview Press.
Wright, B. (2007). Oh, How You Make My Heart Sing!: A Heartfelt Story of Adoption. AuthorHouse.
Bullard, R. D., Mohai, P., Saha, R., & Wright, B. (2008). Toxic wastes and race at twenty: Why race still matters after all of these years. Envtl. L., 38, 371.
Bullard, R., & Wright, B. H. (1987). Environmentalism and the politics of equity: emergent trends in the black community. Mid-American Review of Sociology, 12(2), 21-37.
Dr. Beverly Wright attributes some of her success to her innate ability to recognize injustice and her willingness to fight to correct it. Born and raised in New Orleans, Dr. Wright has experienced and witnessed the polluting effects of Cancer Alley–an 85-mile stretch of land between Baton Rouge and New Orleans home to over 150 petrochemical plants and refineries– her entire life. Through decades of research and community organizing, she found that the absence of community input worsened the effects of polluting industries. She developed the “Communiversity Model,” a partnership between communities and universities that integrates community concerns and real-life experiences into research and policymaking for academic educators and researchers.
Under her guidance, the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (DSCEJ) has addressed environmental and health inequities along the Mississippi River and coastal regions of Louisiana for two decades while providing education, health and safety training, and job placement for residents in communities impacted by climate change. It also developed the first-ever environmental justice map to show the connection between race and pollutants, which became the basis for how the EPA determined an environmental justice community to be eligible for funding.
Dr. Wright’s significant research on environmental justice led her to develop a groundbreaking curriculum that has been used to introduce thousands of students in the New Orleans Public Schools system to environmental justice. She also manages Hazardous Waste Worker Training Programs that embrace a work-based curriculum and a holistic approach to learning for young men and women living near contaminated sites, resulting in their employment.
Alongside other environmental justice organizations, Dr. Wright debuted the first-ever Climate Justice Pavilion inside the Blue Zone at COP27, the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference. The Pavilion brought together representatives from the Global South, the US Environmental Justice Movement, and Indigenous peoples to spotlight the voices of communities disproportionately impacted by climate change.
Dr. Wright is a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council under the Biden-Harris Administration and a member of the Justice 40 Initiative Workgroup. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the Greenfield Environmental Multistate Trust, City of New Orleans Communities LEAP US Department of Energy, Equitable and Just National Climate Platform, and more.
Dr. Wright is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leadership Award in 2006, the 2008 EPA Environmental Justice Achievement Award, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition 2008 Community Award, the Ford Motor Company’s Freedom’s Sisters Award in July of 2009, the prestigious 2009 Heinz Award as well as the 2010 Beta Kappa Chi Humanitarian Assistance Award bestowed by the National Institute of Science and the Conrad Arensberg Award given by the Society for the Anthropology of Work in 2010. She was also recognized by the Grios as one of its 100 History Makers in the Making in 2010. She also received the Urban Affairs Association’s SAGE Activist Scholar Award in May 2011.
She is the author of numerous scholarly books and articles. She co-authored Race, Place & the Environment After Hurricane Katrina from Westview Press and The Wrong Complexion for Protection: How The Government Response Endangers African-American Communities from New York University Press. Dr. Wright received her BA from Grambling College and her MA and Ph.D. in Sociology from the State University of New York at Buffalo, from where she also received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2003.
Dr. Wright currently serves on numerous boards and committees, including the Greenfield Environmental Multistate Trust, LLC (Member 2021 – Present), the Equitable & Just National Climate Platform (Member 2021 – Present), the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) (Member 2020 – Present), the City of New Orleans Communities LEAP US Department of Energy (Member 2020 – Present), the Gulf Study Scientific Advisory Board, National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Durham, NC. (Member 2011 - Present) , the City of New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board, New Orleans, LA. (Member 2010 - Present), the Tony Mazzocchi Center – United Steelworkers of America, Pittsburgh, PA. (Advisory Board - Present), the Environmental Justice Leadership Forum (EJLF) (Member 2008 – Present), African American Women of Purpose and Power (AAWPP), New Orleans (Founding President and Board Member 2008 – Present), the Gulf Coast Fund, New Orleans, LA (Member 2006 - Present), Parkway Partners, New Orleans, LA (Member 2006 – present), the Environmental Justice Climate Change Initiative (Co-Chair, Advisory Board 2002 - present), the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, New Orleans, LA (Member 2010 – Present), and We Speak for Ourselves, The Panos Institute, Washington, DC, (Advisory Committee Member - Present).
Dr. Wright’s parents instilled in her a sense of justice at an early age. Her parents were quick to explain to her the wrongness of racial discrimination. As Dr. Wright pursued higher education, she met many faculty mentors and supportive colleagues that helped her advance her career in environmental justice.
“We don’t go into communities to try to help. We want them to see what we are about and come to us. It’s easier that way.” Beverly Wright, 2005.
“It is important to recognize that governments seldom initiate action to address environmental problems. Governments generally respond to outside pressure, and this pressure must be applied over an extended period of time to achieve lasting results.” Beverly Wright, 2005.
“My hope is for the future with young people. I would say that young people are not NEARLY as racist as we used to be. And I think they see a completely different world, and I’m so happy that that is the case.” Beverly Wright, 2010.
Aspen Challenge. (2023). Beverly Wright. Retrieved July 24, 2023, from https://aspenchallenge.org/people/beverly-wright/.
Beverly L Wright PhD - Deep South Center for Environmental Justice. https://www.dscej.org/our-story/our-team/beverly-l-wright-phd
Beverly Wright. (2023, June 16). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Wright
NIEHS. (2022). Addressing Environmental and Health Inequities in the Deep South. Retrieved July 25, 2023 from https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/supported/success/2022/wright/index.cfm.
Survey and interviews conducted by Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Sustainability Initiative staff. 2022-2023. Yale University-School of the Environment. New Haven, Connecticut.
Taylor, Dorceta (Ed.). (2005). The Paths We Thread: Profiles of the Careers of Minority Environmental Professionals. Minority Environmental Leadership Development Initiative, University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment.